Discover phase

The offer is signed off. The briefing is in place. Now comes the part many would rather skip: not delivering at once, but first understanding what is actually meant to come into being. The Discover phase is the room for that. Here we look for direction before we set it.

Freedom before form.

Discover means: let thought run. No premature limits, no too-early lock on a solution. The greatest strength of this phase is breadth. Ideas, impressions, moods, references. Everything may stand side by side at first, without being judged at once. Only once there is enough material does the sorting begin.

In most projects we gather this in a canvas tool such as FigJam. Moodboards, sketches, notes, screenshots. All in one place, visible to everyone on the team. Templates and workshop setups you will find under Figma → Workshops.

The briefing is the compass.

Freedom does not mean without orientation. The briefing from the planning phase is our starting point. Aims, audience, scope, conditions. Anyone who does not know the briefing in Discover is inventing a different project. Read it. Question it. If something does not hold, say so before you explore further.

Client, context, competition.

Good discovery goes beyond moodboards. We get to know the client: How do they decide? What have they already tried? What did not work? We look outward: market, competition, similar projects. And we question the actual problem. Not only the symptom in the enquiry, but the cause behind it. Sometimes the right answer sits in a different discipline than first thought.

From gathering to deciding.

Discover does not end with a hundred open ideas. It ends with a direction we can give reasons for. Which concepts carry the briefing? Which fall away, and why? This step is Define in the Double Diamond: diverge, then converge. The result can be a workshop protocol, a FigJam board, a concept deck. What matters is that the team and the client understand where it is going before the making begins.

The shoulder-check closes the phase.

At the end of Discover stands a shoulder-check. Not a report, but a shared look at the direction: Does the concept hold? Is substance still missing? Is the client on board? Come prepared. Show the work in the context of the briefing. Take feedback, or give reasons why not. What follows from this meeting you document in Basecamp, so no one has to rely on memory.

Once the direction is signed off, it continues into the making phase. There the idea becomes work.